Film Review: The Swimmers
The Swimmers, directed by Sally El-Hosaini, follows two teenage sisters, Sara (Manal Issa) and Yusra (Nathalie Issa), in Damascus, Syria. They aspire to become Olympic swimmers, but as the conflict in Syria continually worsens, they decide they must leave their family and go to Germany where they can apply for asylum and hopefully have their family join them. The girls and their cousin embark on a harrowing journey with refugees from other countries, crossing the sea by boat and barely surviving a voyage that has killed countless numbers of refugees before and after them. Not only do they have to deal with the life-threatening journey to Germany, but they also must deal with people continually looking to exploit the vulnerabilities of refugees along the way.
By the time they finally get to Germany, the younger sister Yusra is determined to keep working towards swimming in the Rio Olympics in 2016. She finds herself a coach and eventually makes it to Rio, swimming for the refugee team.
This true story is heartbreaking, and the film masterfully portrays the many difficulties that refugees experience. But woven through the despair and fear is hope for a better future and the defiant determination to keep fighting towards their goals.
Manal and Nathalie Issa beautifully take on their characters and their acting easily pulls the audience in to the story. As they are also sisters in real life, their sibling dynamic in the movie feels very authentic and relatable.
The impact of the story is only strengthened by the cinematography, which presents a sense of peace and normalcy in the beginning as it follows the girls’ life before the war. And it ties their story into the larger story of the refugee journey in many moments, like when the camera pans out once they arrive on the beach in Greece to show the thousands of discarded life jackets from refugees before them, leaving the question of how many of those life jackets served their purpose and got their owners to safety, and how many washed ashore after their owners died at sea.
The Swimmers powerfully brings the big issue of the refugee crisis down to a more focused look at the very personal story of individuals, which inspires empathy and a strong desire to help refugees. The audience sees the difficulties of the journey, such as when the group is refused water and a place to stay, treated like their lives are expendable. As a viewer, it compelled me to want to offer water and showers at the very least to refugees. After watching this movie, surely even the least sympathetic to the plight of refugees could not hold back their compassion towards those who must go through these experiences to survive.